In theory...

I have woken up skinny two days in a row.

Hmm...and have not felt such a need to write.

Yet, I'm pretty certain I ate most of the cookies in the Circus Animals bag this week.

This does not add up.

Maybe I am getting better?

Hold on, let me go check again.  Make sure I really am skinny.......................................well, maybe I can see those Circus Animal cookies.

me taking myself too seriously
Andrew loving me in spite of it.

It's okay though.  I still pass inspection.

Last night my husband told me I had a "rockin' body."  He's such a dork, but he means it.  I think it's far from rockin.  It's more like the blues, or folk music to me.  It could try a lot harder, but it just doesn't see the point.  

I was afraid if I gave up control of food he would be disgusted with what I became.  I thought he would scrunch up his nose at my fat and not want to touch me.  I worried he'd watch me in a restaurant and think I should not eat so much.

When I felt hopeful we may get married, my reaction was to eat less so he would be sure to get what he signed up for.  Then during art history class, I penned long letters to him about how he put me on a pedestal for my beauty, and I didn't like it.  I told him, 'I want to be equal to you, and with you...not apart from you.'

I didn't know I did that to myself.  I put the focus on my outward self.  Not him.  He simply loved me, and I was too scared to know it.

Now we have been together for 6 years.  6 years of pushing the question, "Will you still love me if I do...this?"  And the answer is always, yes.  He doesn't want me to write about him in this blog.  But I have to sometimes.  He has been in step with me through every change. Through 2 pregnancies he has held me, and adored me honestly and without hesitation. 

I still hold back.  I still have days where I'm afraid to let him feel the softness on my hips.  I still cry because I am tired of wishing my body were different.  I want to work on a different problem.  It reminds me of early painting classes in college.  I had to paint the same boring still life for weeks.  My professor would point to a mustard bottle and ask, 'What color is that?"  And after a while, I didn't know, and I didn't care.  I saw all colors and the thing morphed as I was staring at it.  I just wanted to move on.   Look at something else.  But I was learning a discipline, and that's not fun.  It is hell, actually.  

Right now I am learning, "My value is not decided by my body's appearance, or by the food I do or do not eat." Andrew helped make this real to me.  I could not do it on my own, or in theory.  He is not the only one.  All the people who have read this blog have helped too.  thank you, friends*  He is however, the most constant.  There is no room for Lydia to pick apart his actions.  Our integrity is real.  Our partnership solid.  In truth, I am not flimsy at all.